Sir Furboy's 75 Books in 2017

A new year tomorrow so time for a new thread. I read 94 books in 2016, which is a bit down on my record of 252 in a year but still pretty good. Looking forward to sharing at least 75 reads in 2017.

For those who don't know me my main likes in books are Young Adult, Sci Fi, Fantasy, Coming of Age and Historical. I also have been reading more books in other languages. If any of that intrests you, drop me a comment.

I am part of the group.
I love being part of the group.
I love the friendships bestowed upon my by dint of my membership of this wonderful fellowship.
I love that race and creed and gender and age and sexuality and nationality make absolutely no difference to our being a valued member of the group.

Thank you for also being part of the group.

Welcome back!

Happy reading in 2017!

Happy New Year! (dropping a star)

Yup, I read everything you listed. I'll be interested in seeing what you read in 2017.

>6 cammykitty: Thanks and I visited your thread in return. We seem to have some closely aligned interests so I am looking forward to seeing what you are reading this year.

1. Once by Morris Gleitzman



A short book with a big subject to start the new year. This is a story of a young Polish Jewish boy hidden away in an orphanage early in the second world war. He escapes, determined to find his book seller parents, armed only with his gift for story telling.

The boy is somewhat naïve in much the same way as in "The boy in the Striped Pyjamas" (although obviously from the other side of things). Still that works to make a less bleak tale. Written for older children, this book is another fine work in a growing genre looking at this period of history.

Oh, Once sounds good but I almost want to ask if it has a happy ending before looking at it!

>9 cammykitty: The book is part of a series so the ending is happyish. It is not like The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in that sense.

Thanks for the comment.

2. De Brief voor de Koning - Tonke Dragt

English version: The Letter for the King



I started this one in 2016 but have only just finished it. It is both quite long (for a children's/young adult book - 560 pages) and I was reading it in Dutch, so I took a while to finish this one.

The book is also available in English however, and I found it because a 13 year old boy mentioned to me that he had read it over the summer holidays. He did not think it was the greatest book he had ever read but he quite liked it. He was also the one who put me onto Patrick Ness a year earlier, so worth following up his recommendations. Still when I found it was originally a Dutch book I bought it in Dutch to practice the language.

I can see why this book was one he just quite liked. It does not qualify for the same accolades I would afford to Patrick Ness and his work. This story is a classic quest adventure in every sense. Tiuri is disturbed from his vigil the night before he is to be knighted by his king and then quickly sucked into an adventure where he must deliver an urgent message to the king of another distant kingdom. The journey has perils and hardships and some bad knights trying to stop him, but on the way he meets many honourable people who help him out.

This book feels like it was written for another age. Characters are largely good and noble or bad and ignoble. There are a few deeper characterisations, but the level of internal conflict does not rise very high. I was also rather put out by all the "black knight with a white shield" and "black knight with a red shield" descriptions which in some passages made the prose sound almost like the start of some long and convoluted joke.

Some things were just downright odd, like the knight who stayed in an inn without removing his helmet (which leads to some interesting questions as to how he managed to eat there).

The story was long and had some nice ideas, some tension, not a great many surprises, although it tried for a few, and ultimately some harmless fun. It is not a bad book but (as is the way of these things) it kicks off a series and I won't be reading any more of these.

>11 sirfurboy: For me it is a childhood favourite, originally published in 1962. Not a series but there is a sequel Geheimen van het Wilde Woud.

>8 sirfurboy: I have also read and appreciated Once, Sir F; older children that we both are!

>12 FAMeulstee:. Thanks, that explains a lot. I read it on an ebook reader so started at the beginning of the story but scrolling back to the title page does confirm that it was written in the 1960s and, indeed, won an award the following year.

When I said it read like it was written for another age, the 1960s pretty much covers it. It is typical of how books were written then, but not so much now. As such it is unfair of me to hold it up to the style of more modern story telling convention.

I still probably won't read Geheimen van het Wilde Woud but I can see why this would be a childhood favourite.

On another note, if you have any recommendations for exciting young adult works originally in Dutch, please let me know. I am currently working my way through Groter dan de lucht, erger dan de zon which I am quite enjoying. I saw that one mentioned on the NOS Jeugdjournaal. Adult books are fine too in various genres but they need to be not too long!

Dank je wel voor jouw commentaar.

>13 PaulCranswick: I am glad you liked it too Paul. Good to have confirmation that my tastes are not unsound :)

3. La bouteille à la mer - La Patrouille des Castors - Mitacq

Touchstone not working on this one. Oh well.



The fifth book in this series, released in 1959. I have a way to go before I read them all.

This time the Beaver Patrol are sailing in Brittany when they discover a message in a bottle from lost researchers in Greenland. This kicks off a search which at first turns up no trace of the missing scientists, but through the actions of the Beaver Patrol and the help of a worldwide scout network they uncover the mystery and then are sucked into a classic Cold War action adventure.

Up until now, all countries in this series have been named, but this book invents an Eastern Block country of Esturia, which confused me for a while as I thought it might be a French word for a country such as Estonia, but it was fairly clear that East Germany was actually meant. For some reason, the authors did not seem to want to name the enemy state.

Anyway the whole story is a preposterous boys own adventure that is nevertheless quite enjoyable.

Still, maybe I should start reading Asterix instead!

>14 sirfurboy: Graag gedaan/You are very welcome :-)

I kept up during the years by reading books that were awarded, like Gouden Griffel, Woutertje Pietersen prijs and Nienke van Hichtum prijs, those books are tagged "bekroond" in my library.
I recently read Allemaal willen we de hemel by Els Beerten, she is Flemish. And I would recommend the books by Benny Lindelauf and Anton Quintana's Het boek van Bod Pa.

I recently started a project to read all my childrens and YA books, so there will be more on my thread this year.

>17 FAMeulstee: Thanks for the pointers, that is quite a treasure trove of ideas now. I will start making selections.

Het boek van Bod Pa looks interesting, but a quick check of Amazon does not turn up an ebook, and indeed no other buying options right now. Bol.com has a paper copy, but I have never used them and in any case it is a touch expensive so I will just have to leave it on a wishlist for now.

Thanks again.

4. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens



Curiously I have never read this story before. I have read a lot of Dickens, and seen TV or film adaptions of much of his work too, but this one has clearly passed me by. I knew its historical setting, and the opening words, but that was about the extent of my knowledge.

The book is very much a classic Dickens work. Of course it is written in flowery pose, but there is some biting irony, and some of his dry humour too, as well as his trademark coincidences.

This is also something of a love story, and a story of noble and ignoble actions. There is a striking theme of doubles in the work too, with people who look alike but act differently. Each character seems to have a pair, type and antitype.

Set in London and Paris during the period of the French Revolution and the reign of terror that followed it, this is a great historical work too.

The opening words appear to describe the current age very well too:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

And then, my last comment on this book: The Simpsons predicted Donald Trump as president, but it was Dickens who predicted the rise of the extreme right in the UK, I think. I mean, who else could he have meant by Madame Defarge?

Your comments on Letter for a King make me think I should read Patrick Ness. He's been on my wishlist for years, but I've been a bit nervous about actually reading them. And in the mean time, more books keep coming out and I keep hearing good things about them. Someone warned me about a dog's death, and I think that is what pushed them into the subconscious list of maybe not books.

>20 cammykitty: Well I can think of a dog being killed in one of his books (the Monsters of Men series) but although that is sad, it is also a powerful part of the plot of that series. Still you might like to know that his A Monster Calls has been made into a forthcoming film.

He is a really good author, but he sometimes (often) deals with hard subjects so I suppose it will depend on what you want from a book

Thanks for commenting.

>19 sirfurboy: Lovely review Sir F of a book which I think is Dickens' sharpest most coherent work. Love the closing comments and I can see the Iron Lady there taking us away on a trip to an uncaring society, but isn't Defarge and Farage phonetically so similar?!

>22 PaulCranswick: Yes, the phonetic similarity is a bit of a gift, but a second irony is that Madame Defarge is actually named Thérèse.

But I am sure this is not the place for political commentary over someone who wants to repeal the human rights act!

5. The Bronze Key (Magisterium book 3) - Holly Black, Cassandra Clare



Third in this middle grade series about a boy and his friends (a boy and a girl) in a magical school under the shadow of a dark magical overlord who vanished in a wizard war when the boy was a baby, leaving him with a magical injury he carries for life and a special heritage. Each book looks at one year in the magical school. Not sure if that write up sounds like anything anyone can think of!

The first book seemed to start slow and predictably but had a wonderful twist that had me reviewing it very positively last year. The second book didn't really live up to the promise of the first, getting rather bogged down in angst, and the third continues to be quite predictable and without very deep characterisations. Despite that it is competently put together, and probably won't disappoint the target audience as long as they overlook the rather obvious derivation of many (but not all) of the ideas. It contains just enough spark for me to keep going with it.

6. Inside Out by Amanda Speedie

Can't find a touchstone for this one, but Amazon has it here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inside-Out-Amanda-Speedie/dp/1849232946



I found this book in a Waterstones store a while ago. I could tell when I picked it up that this was not a conventionally published book, but it was in a book store, so it was not self published either. I decided to give it a go, although it took me a while to get to it on my TBR list.

It is perhaps a little unclear whether this is a self published work or not. It sits in some kind of grey area where the book has not been picked up by a traditional publisher but has still been selected to sit on a book seller's shelves through innovative distribution channels.

This is a short work looking at the life of a boy, Alex, as he grows up. The title refers to the main message of the book, that what you see on the outside is not what is going on inside.

What follows is a slow descent from bright, cheerful, intelligent and sporty Alex into a boy who is bottom of his class, unfit and unhappy as his father also descends from a hero who saves people at sea to an abusive husband.

Its rather a depressing work. It claims to be based on a real life story, and to be honest, it sounds like this is probably true. Whereas a story might have some kind of message of hope at the end, this one just kind of went on.

Good points, however, might be around the nicely observed "slice of life" moments in this book.

One annoyance with the book: if a dialogue merits swear words then there is really no point asterisking them out! A good editor would have sorted that out, but in general this book did not feel unedited.

7. La Genèse - Louis Segond Version of the Bible



I have joined the Bible as Literature group read, and just completed the first book of the Bible, Genesis, but reading it in a French version. The plan is to read the whole Bible this year.

Last time I read the Bible from cover to cover was back in 2011 or 2012, and at the time I was on LibraryThing and reported the whole Old Testament as one book and the whole New Testament as a second book for purposes of my 75 book challenge. This was because I was aware that many books of the Bible can be read very quickly and it seems silly, for instance, to report the letter of Philemon as a single work.

However, because I am reading in French this time around, the going will be slow. Also taking a look at word counts, I see that Genesis has some 32,000 words or so, and that is on a par with a long mid grade book, or a shorter young adult work. Thus I don't think it unreasonable that I claim it as a book read.

But that leads to the question, where will the cut off be?

The answer will be that I will count many shorter works under a single heading. For instance, "Letters of Paul" will count as one book and I will tag Ruth onto Judges (maybe Joshua too), will treat 1 and 2 Samuel as one book, and do the same with Chronicles and Kings etc. Roughly speaking I will not be counting anything less than about 20,000 words as a single book.

Obviously what I call a book is entirely up to me in my thread, but that is a solution that works for me and, I think, fairly represents the reading effort I will be putting in.

Now, as to a review of Genesis: well this was a familiar story to me, although my first time reading it in French. Having recently read The Bible Doesn't Say That, I was struck by a difference between Genesis 1 and 2 that Joel Hoffman had pointed out but just seemed more obvious in the French. Where Genesis 2 starts speaking of the LORD God instead of God, I tend not to notice this in English. However the difference between "Dieu" and "L'Eternal Dieu" was much more noticeable to me in French, as is all use of "L'Eternal" on its own for "The LORD".

Other than that I had no great new insights. The story begins with the creation and then the flood narratives before moving onto Abraham. Isaac gets little attention, whereas Jacob gets a lot, and then of course there is the Joseph narrative, leading to the children of Israel living in Egypt, nicely setting the scene for the sequel... Exodus :)

>26 sirfurboy: Interesting on how to count the Bible in your record of books read. There are no rules of course but to count it as 1 book would seem a little bit onerous. I have the Authorised King James Version with Apocrypha in my bedside table. The Old Testament runs to 1,039 pages; the Apocrypha 248 pages and the New Testament 319 pages. To break down the Old Testament I would probably count the Books of Moses as one; Joshua through the Books of Kings as two; Chronicles until Psalms as three; Psalms until Song of Solomon as four and the Prophets as five. That is how I would do it and I don't think it unreasonable if you counted each individually as Books of the Bible.

Have a great weekend, Sir F.

Thanks Paul,

Yes I considered a plan much like yours too. That would make a lot of sense.

Now for something completely different. In her thread here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/240717

Lori is documenting her walking challenge, walking the length of the beautiful Trans Canada Highway 1. It is a virtual challenge, in that she counts off here actual walking distance against the route and describes where she is on it. That is such a great idea that I wanted to do it too, and so I have put together something similar, but that allows me to work in my interest in books, languages and my category challenge too.

My plan is to use my recorded Fitbit daily distances to walk around the coast of Europe on the European Union long distance footpath network. I will start in Palermo, Sicily and follow paths E1, E12, E4, and E9, keeping to the coast, on this map:




Path E9 ends in Narva-Jõesuu, Estonia, but that is many thousands of miles, and I won't get that far in a year unless I start walking a lot more than I do now. Still, I will see how far I get in a year.

On my way I will pass through various European countries, and I will attempt to flavour my reading with books either in the appropriate languages, or with stories set there. The plan is also to update with information about where I am "located" at various points.

Yes, I know this sounds like a new year's resolution... so maybe it will work, maybe it won't, but its worth a try.

>29 sirfurboy: Wow, Sir F. Good luck with that. You do know that there is a group fitbit challenge - I will find you the link to it if you're interested as there are about 20 of us in the 75ers doing it.

>30 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul, yes please to the link.

Since January 1st I have walked 166 kilometres, which means I have already reached Parco Naturale dei Nebrodi (although the route takes me just to the south of it).

Here then is where I am on my virtual tour:



and:

>29 sirfurboy: Nice! That route takes you to some beautiful places :-)

>31 sirfurboy: Beautiful!

8. Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life - James Patterson



I enjoyed this book a lot. This first one I borrowed from the library, but for some reason the library does not have number 2 despite having all the others so I immediately went out and bought the sequel. Definitely one I would recommend to people who like mid-grade and young adult books.

This is an amusing and thoughtful adventure that will probably still manage to annoy some parents because it is all about a boy, Rafe, going into sixth grade (in the US system, that makes him 12) determined that he will literally break every rule in the new school rule book he has been given. This anti establishment attitude seems at odds with the voice of the narrator, even though it is a first person narration by Rafe himself. Nevertheless as the book progresses we find out who Rafe is, and I really liked the characterisation here. It was cleverly done.

The author is an established writer, although I have only read one of his books in the past, and was not overly taken with it. Nevertheless in this book he had me hooked. There is no complex plot or deep mystery to solve. There is conflict, but that conflict is not hugely original - it is just a very competent reworking on tried and tested themes. However there is plenty of humour, some poignancy and some self discovery in this piece, but mostly its just a good story that the target age group should love as much as I did.

I have now walked 183 KM since January 1st, still putting me just south of the Parco dei Nebrodi in Sicily. Looking at a Google street view of where I am, I think this bit of Sicily looks quite a lot like some Welsh upland pastures:

Google Street View of where I am!

I have also been to the library and borrowed some books about Sicily and Italy to flavour my adventures. I am looking for good short Italian books (young adult books would be ideal) to read too, if anyone has some ideas.

At my current walking rate of about 5 miles (8KM) a day, my best estimate is that I will be in Italy for most of the year, but will also pass through France and get as far as Valencia in Spain, a distance of just under 3,000 kilometres. That is what I will manage if I do nothing different - so the challenge now is to up my walking a bit and see if I can get further.

I also bought four more books in English yesterday meaning my TBR list is now larger than at the start of the year, which is not good going as I was determined I was going to reduce it!

Oh well.

>32 FAMeulstee: Yes, it is going to be interesting visiting them, even if it is just virtual (for now).

Thanks.

Wow, ambitious trek!!

Glad to see you joined up to the Fitbit LT group Sir F. Not sure that we will actually be step by step, toe to toe all year but it will be fun to see your progress and the lack of mine.

>36 ronincats: Thanks Roni.

>37 PaulCranswick: Thanks again for the invitation Paul.

9. Middle School: Get Me Out of Here! - James Patterson and Chris Tebbetts



Second in this series, and I enjoyed it as much as the first. Rafe is in Art School now, but his problems are not over, he finds new enemies, a new friend, and a whole lot of trouble. Again the themes of this book are not stunningly original, but they are put competently together in a way that felt fresh and enjoyable. Rafe's imaginative character is very well done, and the artwork in the book adds to the overall humour of the whole thing. I am enjoying this series.

Up to 192 kilometres on my tour, and so have just reached Castello di Nelson:



This is museum but originally an abbey dating to 1174, it has a Gothic-Norman portico and contains a Byzantine icon which, according to tradition, was painted by St Luke



The guides explain that this would be better named the Abbey of Santa Maria of Maniace, given the building began as a Benedictine Monastery in the thirteenth century.

Queen Margarita built this great temple to the Madonna.

Little remains of the ancient castle, other than the towers and part of the old wall because the building was changed by Nelson’s heirs for agricultural purposes. In the interior courtyard there is a Celtic cross dedicated to Nelson while in the park there is a small cemetery, where a black lava-stone Celtic cross stands out, marking the grave of the Scottish poet William Sharp.

10. Middle School: My Brother Is a Big, Fat Liar James Patterson



Third in this series and this one is narrated by Rafe's sister, Georgia, who is not like her brother but has to live in the shadow of his reputation when she starts at his old middle school.

Entertaining stuff. The authorities in this series do seem to lack a certain skill set when handling children. I would not want my children going to this school! But all the same that makes for a story that is filled with injustice, conflict and amusing incidents.

I have now walked 236 kilometres since January 1st, and this weekend my virtual route has been taking me past Mount Etna, the most active volcano in Europe.

The route passes to the north of the mountain, whereas those wishing to climb it usually approach from the south.

Here is a view of the landscape:

Comune di Castiglione di Scicilia

Castiglione is a municipality in the foothills of Etna, just to the north of the Etna national park.

A quick summary for January:

10 books completed (quite a few others started!)
7 out of 17 categories started in my category challenge (https://www.librarything.com/topic/243521)
2 books read in French
1 book read in Dutch
157 miles (252 KM) walked, crossing most of Sicily (virtually)
No categories complete yet
My TBR list has grown to 80 books, which is actual books I have and targeted to read this year and does not count very many free samples I have on Kindle.

11. Middle School: How I Survived Bullies, Broccoli, and Snake Hill - James Patterson



Fourth in this series, and another good read, this time taking a look at the issue of verbal bullying, whilst weaving another entertaining tale. The formula is starting to look a little recycled, as this time we have a summer camp / summer school that is staffed by just the kind of incompetent staff as the schools seem to be peopled with, once again giving free reign to bullying and causing Rafe to find ways to deal with the challenges whilst not getting into any more trouble (or not getting found out... which inevitably he will fail at!)

Good entertaining stuff for older children and upwards.

I walked over 8 miles yesterday, just about 13 KM. I have thus reached the east coast of Sicily and yesterday would have passed Taormina, which is a very ancient community, first inhabited by the Siculi and then the Greeks prior to the Romans.

This beautiful amphitheatre can be found there:



The Teatro Greco is built in a Greek style and arrangement although the use of brick suggests it is in fact Roman. It is thought the Romans rebuilt over the foundations of an original Greek theatre.

This theatre is the second largest of its kind in Sicily (after that of Syracuse). Although much of the original seating has gone, this theatre is one of the finest examples anywhere of many of the other features of such Corinthian theatres. In its heyday it would have been richly ornamented.

Still folowing your virtual travels, and enjoying your finds :-)

>46 FAMeulstee: Thanks. Here is one I didn't mention that I passed on Sunday:

Gole dell'Alcantara

A lava flow from Etna blocked the Alcantara river in the distant past, but the river eventually cut this corge through the lava flow.

Meanwhile, book number 12:

12. The Rough Guide to Sicily - Jules Brown



A long but readable guide to all things in Sicily. Plenty of practical information, lots of detail, and a huge list of interesting things to see and discover. I started reading this to accompany my virtual walk, and have discovered that there are several things in Sicily I would like to visit that the walking route does not reach. Those will have to await a real trip there one day!

the book talks candidly about the Mafia, even though a visitor to Sicily is not likely to run into any obvious Mafia activity.

What I am particularly sold on, however, is the volcanoes, and I am adding a trip to Stromboli and/or Volcano to my bucket list. Both are easily reached from Sicily it turns out.

13. L'Exode



Second book in the Bible, read in French (Louis Segonde version).

A standout passage for me this time, because I reached it the day after a certain controversial ban was enacted, was Exodus 23:9, which in my version (Louis Segonde) read:

"Tu n'opprimeras point l'étranger; vous savez ce qu'éprouve l'étranger, car vous avez été étrangers dans le pays d'Égypte."

Or in English:

You shall not oppress the stranger/alien; You know what the alien feels, for you have been aliens in the land of Egypt.

I also learned a bit of old fashioned French reading this. "Thou shalt not ... " uses the formulation "Tu ne ... point" rather than what I was expecting: "Tu ne ... pas". The ne ... point formulation, it seems, is very old fashioned.

There is some discussion of it, along with other negation adverbs (in French) here:

http://www.languefrancaise.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=7392

>11 sirfurboy: Just want to say that I agree with your comments on A letter for the King but I have to say that I found the sequel, The Secrets of the Wild Wood to be much more exciting and overall more satisfactory. Her The song of seven is quite fun too. I've read quite a lot of Dutch children's books, translated to English of course, and recommend Crusade in Jeans by Thea Beckman, Koning van Katoren by Jan Terlouw and Het boek van alle dingen by Guus Kuijer.

As far as Italian children's books go, I haven't come across too many, rather I've read lots set in Italy. A YA novella, Me and You by Niccolò Ammaniti and YA fantasy L'ultimo elfo by Silvana De Mari.

>34 sirfurboy: It was suggested to me to read books in translation, actually, instead of ones originally written in Italian. I read a couple of children's books that were translated from English.

>49 avatiakh: Thanks for that. In that case I may try Geheimen van het wilde woud - Secrets of the Wild Wood. I have sent myself a kindle sample so it is now on my TBR (but probably not one I will get to soon). I also added a sample of The Song of Seven although will need to hunt down the Dutch version.

Anita led me to Crusade in Jeans although I could not find an ebook version. Het boek van alle dingen looks very interesting and also now on my TBR. I will think about Koning van Katoren too.

Good call with Me and You, as I already purchased the Italian version Io e te. Thus I have also added your suggestion of L'ultimo elfo to my TBR... hmm... that is growing fast!

Thanks for the suggestions.

>50 ursula: Thanks for the suggestion Ursula. There is definitely something to be said for reading stories I am already familiar with in translation, but I like discovering new authors who are not widely translated too. Which ones did you read though?

Thanks again for dropping by.

>51 sirfurboy: It isn't about being familiar with the story, although that can certainly be a plus, of course. I was told that it was a good idea because it means that the Italian will be essentially pristine - no influence of any sort of regional expressions, cultural references, etc that can make reading native literature difficult. I just picked up some book at a second-hand market that was for 9-12-year-olds. I learned all kinds of useful terms - like shipwreck, the parts of a ship (hull, stern etc) and a variety of other adventure-y words. :)

>51 sirfurboy: I think Ursula's recommendation is good.

I read an Italian bestseller last year that I found an enjoyable read alternating between the happy and the sad, 100 days of happiness by Fausto Brizzi. I won't recommend it as you are looking for young adult books, just suggest you read some reviews as I think it could be a relatively easy read in Italian.

Thanks both.

>53 avatiakh: I will take a look at that book. I specified young adult partly because of the length of the work as reading in Italian takes me a long time. Short adult works are fine too.

14. Middle School: Ultimate Showdown



Fifth in this series, but this one was not a story so much as a competition between Rafe and Georgia, co-narrated by them and covering all aspects of middle school life. It will appeal to the target age group, with its catalogue of farts, discussions of bacon, and how to avoid sprouts and such like, but I did not like it so much. I have one more of this series borrowed from the library - after that I think I may take a break from it.

I have now walked the 300 KM from Palermo to Messina since 1 January.

That puts me here:



Messina has a short ferry to the Italian mainland. One of the ferries actually takes trains, so you can board a train in Sicily and stay on it, getting off in Rome or some other location.

Here is an image of one of these:

>56 sirfurboy: I have a friend who took the train from Rome to Sicily and I was baffled by how he did that ... thank goodness he posted pictures. Such a crazy thing!

>57 ursula: Yes, it seems crazy, and yet when you think about it, its just a logical extension of car ferries! Still, there must be a skill to lining the ferry up correctly against the dock!

They probably have plenty of time to get it right, considering how often the trains are late. ;)

15. Groter dan de lucht, erger dan de zon - Daan Remmerts de Vries



This was a fantastic book - my favourite this year. Written in Dutch for older children and upwards, it is a story of self discovery for one Dutch boy, touching on issues of mental illness, bullying, friendship and various other themes. It sensitively explores these themes and lightens the mood with some fine dry humour. It is a readable book set on the backdrop of the island of Vlieland and the community of Amersfoot in the Netherlands.

During a dreary summer camp on Vlieland, eleven year old Elmer gets hit on the head by a large spoon(!) That night, he suddenly hears a mysterious voice calling itself Lomax. Lomax claims that he has come to help Elmer and Elmer finds the power to rebel against the things he does not like, and thus enjoy the camp better, aided by Lomax's promptings. To start with this works out quite well, but when Elmer takes revenge on the most obnoxious boy in his class (and class bully), everything starts to go wrong. Can Elmer escape from Lomax?

As the book's synopsis says: Everyone has voices in their head. But should you listen to them? Must you obey them? And above all is it possible to get rid of them again?

This book is only available in Dutch, and that is a pity. I think it should get an English translation, as English speaking readers are missing out on a good book otherwise. If anyone reading this is looking for books to publish in translation, take a look at this one. I might also suggest that whoever the tourist authority is for Vlieland might also want to consider sponsoring an English translation, as it sells the island nicely (even though Elmer's early experience there is not so great - he describes the Wadden Sea as just another name for mud!)

This book won a 2016 Zilveren Griffel which is an award for Dutch books for children and young adults. I think it would have won a similar English language award had it been written in English.

And finally, on the Dutch, there is some Vlieland and/or Frisian slang in the book that stretched me a bit, but it was good deciphering some of those terms, and I liked the term Jochiebochie. There was also some Pidgin German that was amusing in the context and also extremely hard to decipher!

>60 sirfurboy: Good review! I will look for it the next time I go to the library.

>61 FAMeulstee: Thanks, and I hope you enjoy it.

329 KM now completed on my walk, putting me on the edge of the Parco Nazionale dell'Aspromonte. Here is a view taken at this time of year looking back towards Sicily. The mountain is Etna.

16. Middle School: Save Rafe! - James Patterson



Sixth in the Middle School series, and the formula is trotted out again to produce another enjoyable book, although with nothing much new. Indeed, Rafe's middle school career could almost merit the title "a series of unfortunate events" with his latest art school now closing unexpectedly meaning he has to survove a boot camp if he is to be readmitted to the school he was expelled from in book 1.

I am going to take a break from this series now, although I expect I will come back to it in the future. A well written humourous series that is perfect for the intended age group (older children) but is not hugely deep, meaningful or original. It is, however, fun, with likeable characters and a series of adventures and misadventures with some nice humour.

>62 sirfurboy: Wow, that's beautiful!

Hmm, no updates since 8 February - well I have been busy with other things sadly.

Still, book number 17:

17. Lévitique - Louis Segond version of the Bible



Not the most riveting read in the Bible, but it has its own charm and some hidden gems. I read this in French as part of my Bible as Literature group read.

Also I have now walked 472 kilometres this year, placing me halfway through the Italian region of Calabria close to this spot:



My route has taken me over the mountains that divide Calabria in two. These all look very beautiful, as you would expect, but Google Street view also shows what the guide books mention: that this is one of the poorest areas of Italy, and away from the sea front, it can look quite run down.

Strange to think that a place with a geography to die for is nevertheless quite deprived.

That's a beautiful pic, even if the area has it's issues. We have places in the US like that - beautiful, but poor.

>65 sirfurboy: Beautiful picture!
Isn't it because those regions are poor, they stay undeveloped and thus beautiful?

>67 FAMeulstee: That is probably true, yes. Thanks.

18. Hero.com 1: Rise of the Heroes - Andy Briggs



Surfing the net during a storm, a group of friends end up downloading superpowers and then set off on incredible adventures.

Bought this for my daughter ages ago, but she never read it. I pulled it off the TBR pile and read it through, and I don't think she missed anything.

Published in 2008, the book tries to inject bits of computer knowledge, but it already seemed dated by 2008 standards, and now feels positively archaic.

Still that is not the real problem with this book. Kids with special powers is usually a winning formula in children and young adult books, but this one just felt like it was a bit... silly. I mean, basically the kids just choose the powers they want and download them. If they need more they get an adult to pay for them with visa. And as soon as they have them, they discover the evil villain, Doctor Tempest.

Characterisation was very flat, willing suspension of disbelief a necessity, and ultimately you just know the superheros are going to save the world and stop Fort Knox from being robbed.

A somewhat readable adventure for children, I would hesitate to suggest it for anyone over the age of about 10 or 12.

I think I have the sequel for this, but I doubt I will read it.

*

Now completed 507 KM since January 1st, putting me near here:



Calabria is still very beautiful.

>65 sirfurboy: & >69 sirfurboy: Good walking Sir F. I do hope you are wearing warm shoes though as it looks a tad cold!

>70 PaulCranswick: Well, it is still February... although in reality a lot of my walking last week was in the rain!

My summary for February:

18 books completed, 8 in February. The month started strong and petered out!
10 out of 17 categories started in my category challenge ( https://www.librarything.com/topic/243521 )
4 books read in French (+2 in February)
2 book read in Dutch (+1 in February)
347 miles (558 KM) walked, reaching Cosenza.
No categories complete yet
My TBR list has reduced slightly to 74 books, which is actual books I have and targeted to read this year and does not count very many free samples I have on Kindle. Actual TBR including all of these... hundreds!

So in February I upped my Fitbit goals to 12,000 steps a day (just under 6 miles... but more if I run some of it). I exceeded the goal every day and thus walked 190 miles (just over 300 KM).

On my virtual walk I was just able to reach Cosenza:



Cosenza, like so many places in Italy, has a long and noble history. Surrounded by mountains, it was very defensible, seeing off the Macedonians among others. It gained some note under the Romans, and then persisted as an enclave of the Eastern Roman Empire for some time after the fall of the west.

The town contains a very old University, is the seat of the University of Calabria, and has a wide range of museums, churches and a cathedral to visit.

Being surrounded by mountains, the city has a microclimate that makes it cold in winter and hot in the summer. The picture above is obviously a winter one.

Also of interest, I saw on the NOS Jeugdjournaal last night that Etna is erupting once again.

>72 sirfurboy: I was just going to ask if you had seen the Etna eruptions ;-)

>73 FAMeulstee: Yes, sadly the British media is so inward focused on Brexit these days that they did not bother report it. Dutch news is so much better. :)

19. Les jumeaux Tapper : Tous les coups sont permis - Geoff Rodkey

English version: The Tapper Twins Go to War (With Each Other)



Geoff Rodkey has a wonderful sense of humour and writes great stories and screenplays. I sought him out particularly because I had enjoyed his work previously (as well as some hilarious letters sent to his son, found on his website). This, I thought, would be a great read.

I also found the book in French, and the nature of the book made it an easy read, so one I could hopefully follow in French without too much effort.

It would be wrong to call this book disappointing. It was indeed very funny, and cleverly constructed. It was also very well observed, and ultimately had a cautionary message. Claudia, one of the Tapper Twins, learns some improtant lessons here, and the whole book is really very good.

Nevertheless, for me personally, I found this book almost too uncomfortably well observed of sibling squabbling and one upmanship. In the middle of the book, I was thinking that I didn't really want to see any more of this. The overall message of the book redeems it though, but still it won't be one of my favourites.

That problem does speak to Geoff Rodkey's skill, however. His characters are very well drawn, very believable, and then wrapped up in a style of book that makes you think you are right there with them, your own school friends engaged in all out war. I remain a fan of the author, a very clever writer, but not convinced I will be a fan of the Tapper Twins. There are more in the series but I will leave them for now.

20. Nombres - Luis Segond version of the Bible



Fourth book of the Bible, read in French. This has more narrative than Leviticus, but in places just continues what Leviticus tells, and in other places has long lists of ... well... numbers!

I am now in the Pollino National Park on my virtual journey. This is a mountainous region (true of most of my journey so far). The National Park was established in 1990 and appears to be ideal for walking holidays.



I will be leaving Calabria today, crossing into neighbouring Basilicata although the route is basically right on the border of the two for a while and I briefly cross back into Calabria again one last time for a short distance.

I have created this: My Virtual Journey on Google Maps. Once again I got the idea from Lori (lkernagh).

>77 sirfurboy: Beautiful landscape! I love your Google Map.

Thanks Anita :)

21. Spud - John Van De Ruit



The write up for this one says:

It's 1990. Apartheid is crumbling, Nelson Mandela has just been released from prison and thirteen-year-old Spud Milton is about to start his first year at an elite boys-only boarding school. Cursed with embarrassingly dysfunctional parents, a nutty granny and a dormitory full of strange characters, Spud has his hands full trying to adapt to his new home. With only his wits and his diary, he takes readers on a rowdy boarding school romp full of illegal midnight swims, catastrophic cricket matches, ghostbusting escapades, girls and disastrous holidays.

South African comedian John van de Ruit invites the reader into the mind of a young boy whose eyes are being opened to love, friendship and complete insanity!

That sums it up nicely. A good story, well written, firmly in the coming of age genre. Some of it is hilarious, some is hard. There are some nice moments, the obligatory sadness and triumph of hope.

>77 sirfurboy: Gorgeous, Sir F. I feel healthier just reading of your virtual escapades.

>77 sirfurboy: Ah, I see you're not walking along the coast. A shame, because I was going to say to let me know when you hit Maratea! I was there last May for a conference (well, it was my husband's conference, I was just tagging along).

>80 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul :)

>81 ursula: Ah yes, that is a pity. I will come pretty close in a few days now. I hope you enjoyed the trip there - tagging along on someone else's conference is definitely the way to go :)

22. Arena One: Slaverunners - Morgan Rice



Brooke is a teenage survivor of a civil war and ensuing nuclear holocaust. Her father was a Marine, and his influence helps her survive and take care of her sister, until the day she is snatched by slaverunners. She fires up an old motorbike she has been saving against such eventualities (although as it was unused for many years its a miracle it worked) and sets off in pursuit.

The writing was, at best, competent but could have done with quite a lot of editing. There was plenty of repetitive language. Altogether too many paragraphs began with "Suddenly..." Also I am not a fan of having all the shouting done by characters written in capitals.

Then there was the fact that this read like a B rated action movie, complete with car chases, which were horribly overwritten (the bike was doing 100, 120, 140 and now it is 100, and then 120 again oh here we are pushing 140 again...) The chases inevitably ended in bombs, explosions and multiple crashes. Bullets sprayed off the hood of the vehicle regularly, multiple ribs were broken and other injuries gained yet nothing stopped our action hero and her insipid sidekick. It was about as believable as a Steven Segal shoot-em-up... or indeed maybe it wasn't even that believable.

The heroine of the story gives a strong female lead, which is a plus, but the men are stupid, and one dimensional. Equally Brooke's sister for that matter. As for Brooke, somehow this starving and heavily injured teen can fight a sumo wrestler to the death, and much more. She has the abilities of Katniss Everdeen and the unstopability of the Terminator. She is a survivor in a post apocalyptic America who still has an indomitable spirit, choosing death in the arena against the moral compromise of joining the slave runners (even though that is very much the wrong choice if her stated goal was really to save her sister).

And the post apocalyptic world itself left much to be desired. I mean, the idea that Republicans and Democrats became increasingly extreme sounded promising, but the scenario fell flat a paragraph later when the solution the Republicans came up with was secession. Really? just like that? In a country with no mechanism for state secession, let alone divvying up the country on ideological grounds. That completely missed the human element, and was terribly under developed.

I wanted to like that scenario for its echoes of "not my president", but no... it did not work because it was just too convenient. The Republicans leave with half the country's arsenal, and so then the Democrats attack and they descend into a nuclear war... hmmm... this was all a bit contrived. Did I say "a bit"?

I think this author had been watching Mad Max and the Hunger Games and wanted to go out and write her own version. Lack of character development, too much detail where it was not needed and too little where it was, as well as the Twilightesque level of love interest ensured this was not a patch on either of these.

There is a sequel for this (well of course there is), but I won't be reading it. I doubt I will read anything more by the same author even.

On checking I also see that this is the second book I have read by this author and I was similarly less than impressed by her “Quest for Heroes”.

23. Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide - J K Rowling



One of the three short collections of writings by JK Rowling. There is no story here, just a lot of interesting background, with deft touches of trademark JK Rowling humour. An indispensable guide for Harry Potter fans, but of little interest if you have not read and enjoyed the books.

Actually, I say there is no story, but that is not quite true. The story of how Nearly Headless Nick met his end is in here.

24. Essential German Grammar - Durrell, Kohl, Kaiser and Loftus



Started this one months and months ago! But the thing about Grammar books is that you don't usually read them start to finish. This will be a great reference work, but it is set out in a way that makes it quite hard to read more than a few pages at once.

What this is not: this is not a guide to teach yourself German. It is wrongly set out for that purpose, for a start. Early chapters go through all the structures of German sentences that can happen, but I think it was not until chapter 10 that we finally had a discussion of word order that made sense of all those structures.

There are exercises and chances to practice what is presented, but if a student were handed this book and nothing else to learn German, I don't expect they would get very far.

Still it is a thorough grounding in the grammar of the language, and having read it once, I hope I will feel confident to go back to those sections that I only have a hazy recollection of to try to really get to grips with the grammar.

25 Enders Spiel - Orson Scott Card



This was a re-read with a difference. I read it in German this time. Familiarity with the story certainly helped me through when my German was not up to it.

Ender's Game was one of Card's earliest and best works. Originally a short story, I think it was the first story he developed into a book, and of course it is now also a movie, a comic book series and, sadly, a cash cow. Card keeps churning out new stories in the Enderverse when he should have left it alone long ago.

Still this story was original and remains good to this day, even though these days I am more inclined to see some plot flaws. If you haven't read it, this is as good an introduction to OS Card as any, and good SciFi too.

I have passed 700 KM this year, and you can track my progress on my Google Walking Map

Ursula, I am now as close to Maratea as I will get, although still about 12KM inland.

I just passed this:



Chiesa Madre San Nicola Di Bari (the mother church of Saint Nicholas of Bari)

>87 sirfurboy: Beautiful! That area is gorgeous, so many green hills and villages nestled in them. Maratea has a big Jesus statue up on top of their hill and you can see quite a distance, probably that far even, but not well enough to pick out a church. ;)

>88 ursula: Yes, the area is certainly beautiful, and all very Italian!

26. Oneyun - Alan J. Stark



Three peoples live on the continent Mekoona, and all serve the god, Oneyun. The countries are Esperon, Ostreya and Ruskaron. Ruskaron is the accursed Ostmark, whose people were once humiliated by Oneyun.

For thousands of years, the priests of the Great Church have been guarding countless sanctuaries, in which the god awaits his liberation. War unleashed a plague on the Ruskaron in the past and war is brewing again.

This story is not long, and it is free. For that reason I obtained it last year as one of my German TBR stories. However, it turns out that Amazon freebie stories are not much better in German than they are in English. This one had a large cast, all with virtually no characterisation at all. Instead we leaped straight into conversations about the nature of faith and translations of scripture. If it had been longer I would have given up, but I persevered to the end, and found that the whole book was predicated on a kind of joke. It was not the worst thing I have read, but I was somewhat underwhelmed.

27. Rough Guide to Italy - Martin Dunford



In early February I finished the Rough Guide to Sicily. This book follows a similar format but encompasses the whole of Italy, including Sicily. Some of the Sicily information is obviously repeated, and some is left out in this guide, which clearly needed to pare back the detail so as to keep the guide manageable. It still ran to 1065 pages, so it is pretty massive, covering everything you need to know for a visit to any part of Italy.

The most interesting parts for me were the sites the writer thought as the most outstanding in the country, as well as notes on food, culture and history. There is even a language guide in this book, although it is not the best place to go if you want to learn Italian.

All in all it was too detailed for one reading and I confess I skipped through as many as 300 pages or so of detailed notes about individual towns. That, no doubt, is what the writer expected though. If visiting those locations you need that information, and if not, then the overviews are better.

This will remain on my kindle as a reference work throughout the rest of my virtual walk through Italy, and I will be reading some of the pages I skipped when I get near those towns.

There is certainly nothing wrong with this excellent guide to Italy.

I had a choice to make yesterday when I hit the 700 KM mark of my virtual walk. My original distance estimates had a distance between Palermo and Gibralter of 3,800 KM, which I thought I could just about manage in a year. As I have been plotting the route since then I have found I underestimated the distance a little, and to keep on track I could come off path the European Union path E1 and head straight for Pompeii.

I have decided not to do that. If I wanted the shortest route, I would have stuck to the coast all the way, whereas the point of this was to follow the EU long distance paths as closely as possible. Thus I have today swung right and started heading for Potenza, and will soon be arriving at the Appennino Lucano - Val d'Agri - Lagonegrese National Park (Parco Nazionale dell'Appennino Lucano - Val d'Agri - Lagonegrese).

This will add about 100 KM to my total.

28. Pegasus and the Flame - Kate O'Hearn



In the spirit of Percy Jackson, a story about Roman God's and their winged steed in modern day New York. Mid grade kids might like it but I found it a bit predictable. It is one of three books we bought in a set for my daughter. She never read them, and I won't be reading books 2 and 3.

29. Deutéronome- Luis Segond version of the Bible



Fifth book of the Bible, read in French. As the name somewhat implies, this book re-covers much of the information in earlier books, but presented in what could be understood to be a series of sermons by Moses.

Read this for the group read, although I am a bit behind the timetable on that, so it is straight onto Joshua, Judges and Ruth (which I will treat as one book).

You are moving right along both with your reading and your virtual journey!

>95 ronincats: Yes, I have read more in the first half of March than all of February. Part of that is from targeting the many books I have had on the go for a while, but I thought it was time to reduce my TBR list just a bit!

Thanks for stopping by.

30. Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power. Politics and Pesky Poltergeists - J K Rowling



The third of these three short works by JK Rowling with background information and short stories about Hogwarts. Essential reading for completists, they are nevertheless not really stories in their own right, and are of little interest to anyone who has not read the books.

It is very interesting reading Rowling's thoughts on these characters and seeing glimpses of her inspiration for her books, as well as a touch of her trademark humour.

>97 sirfurboy: I must be part of a dwindling little troupe that has never read any Potter books so obviously I wouldn't be starting with that one!

Have a great weekend, Sir F.

Thanks Paul. The Harry Potter books are worth a read. :)

31. Io e te - Niccolò Ammaniti



Italian book, but an English version is available, titled Me and You.

This is my second book by this author. My first was his award winning Io non ho paura (I'm not scared). This book was similar in its gritty and realistic portrayal of Italy, Italian life and real Italian families. It also shared a darker side with that other book, which I found a little disturbing. I am going to read another book by this author, but if that one is very similar I expect I will decide to move on to others.

That said, Ammaniti is an excellent writer. His characters are well thought through, well developed. His settings believable, his descriptive language is powerful, evocative and yet succinct. There is something compelling about his stories even though he writes about people I would not normally choose to read about!

This was also quite a short work which helped as I was reading it in Italian.

32. Josué, Juges, Ruth - Luis Segond version of the Bible



Onto the history books of the Bible now and making better progress because, of course, there is more narrative here and fewer lists of people and laws.

Joshua is packed with all kinds of battles, stories of faith, piles of stones to commemorate things and quotable quotes. Judges contains many lesser known but powerful stories too, and of course there is the Samson narrative. Ruth is a wonderful story of a widowed immigrant finding love and compassion from the man who would become her husband, and of course is an ancestor of King David.

I could say more about all of these, but will leave that for another time and place. Now if I can read through Samuel in a week I will be back on target for reading the Bible in a year in French.

So the twelfth week of the year has started, and on my virtual walk I am making good progress towards Potenza:

Virtual Walk of Europe

Looking at Google streetview of the are I am in now reveals long straight roads on a relatively flat plane, but with mountains in the distance - never far from mountains in Italy it seems. There are some beautiful houses in the area but also many quite run down. One appeared to be a terrace of houses all with a balcony that seemed to be propped up with rusty scaffolding!

Stopping by with hellos. I absolutely love the images you have been posting in relation to your virtual walking journey! I feel as though I am traveling through Europe with you. Congratulations on the progress you have made!

I will stay in step with you for a little while Sir F and wish you a splendid Sunday.

33. Samuel (books I and II) - Luis Segond version of the Bible



Finally I got ahead of the schedule for reading the Bible in a year, and read through the whole of Samuel in French. It is two books in French and English bibles but I understand there is no such division in the Hebrew.

Some of the most familiar stories in the Bible are in this book. Samuel, Saul, David and more. I knew the stories pretty well which helped.

>102 lkernagh: Thanks Lori, and likewise I love following your journey too.

>103 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul. Sunday was nice. Spring has definitely come, with a fine weekend.

I haven't written updates for a few days on my virtual journey. On Thursday I took a day off work and spent it walking in the Welsh hills, climbing Plynlimon Fawr, our nearest mountain, and then climbing the nearby Dinas iron age hillfort. There was fresh snow on the mountain, and a biting easterly wind, but it did not feel too cold as long as I kept moving.

Plynlimon is awash with ancient sites. I passed standing stones and various bronze age cairns, as well as the iron age hillfort, and I did not have time to see many others.

It is also awash with the sources of various rivers, and awash could describe the ground near some of these! The more famous river sources are the Wye and Severn, although it was the source of Nant Y Moch where I nearly lost my shoe in the mud.

Anyway all that walking added nearly 30KM to my weekly total, and as a result I was just shy of 100 KM walking last week.

I will try to upload some photos soon.

On my virtual tour, this means I went through Potenza on Thursday.

Here is a photo of it from Wikipedia:



Potenza is the capital of the Basilicata region of southern Italy. The city is the highest regional capital in Italy, overlooking the valley of the Basento river in the Apennine Mountains of Lucania, east of Salerno.

Yesterday I left Basilicata, although once again I cross briefly back into the region one more time as the route follows the regional border. I am now in the region of Campania, a name that comes from Roman times: Campania Felix, the fertile (or lucky) countryside. related to the word for a field (campus) and thus to many other words in English such as camp, campaign, champagne etc.

Despite the name, this part of Campania remains quite hilly. I will be at Salerno soon, which is where I leave European Union path E1 and pick up path E12 instead.

Another 12 KM yesterday saw me leave Basilicata for the last time and I have now reached Lago di Conza, a lake constructed for the generation of electricity:



(Wikipedia image)

And you can see my location here:

Street View

My real mountain walk last week took me past the Nant y Moch reservoir which was also constructed to generate electricity (as well as to regulate water flow downstream). You can see that reservoir here:

34. Il Principe - Niccolo Machivelli

(The Prince)



I have never read this before, so I rectified that this year and read it in Italian too, as one of my Italian reads for the year.

the book is not that long, but reading in Italian is challenging, and, of course, it was not modern Italian either, so I spent a lot of time with Google translate on this one - although I was somewhat encouraged that the Italian did not feel as antiquated as 16th century English would. It was more the case that there was challenging vocabulary.

Much has been said about this book. I perhaps did not find it quite as Machiavellian as I had expected! Although there was plenty in there to lend credence to that term. How to be a powerful prince by playing one group of people off against another, and more.

Machiavelli also seeks to bring together many examples to support his points, but I suspect closer inspection of many of these may reveal other reasons he had not foreseen as to why these people succeeded or, more often, failed.

Still this is a seminal work. So much so that some European history courses would treat it as ushering in Modern European History. It is also an interesting snapshot on the rather hopeless nature of Italian politics at that time, a victim of its geography.

A quick summary for March:

34 books completed this year, 16 of them in March, making March my best month so far.
14 out of 17 categories started in my category challenge ( https://www.librarything.com/topic/243521 )
7 books read in French (+5 in March)
2 book read in Dutch (none in March)
3 books read in German (+2 in March)
2 books read in Italian (Both in March)

573 miles (923 KM) walked.
No categories complete yet

My TBR list is down to 66 books, which is actual books I have and targeted to read this year and does not count very many free samples I have on Kindle. I have added quite a few free samples this month so the "real" TBR has probably grown.

On my virtual tour, I completed 923 KM by the end of March, and by the end of today I will have reached Salerno, which marks the point where I leave the mountainous route E1 and pick up route E12 which will take me around the coast of Italy, then France, and then Spain. I still hope to reach Gibralter by December 31st.

Impressive stats all round Sir F.

34 books done is good especially as it is difficult to read and walk at the same time and you are spending such a lot of time doing that!

Both your walking stats and your reading stats (FIVE different languages--I am in awe!) are amazing!!

>110 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul. I do listen to some books on audio, which I can do when walking, so that can help with the time. Amazon sometimes offers reduced price audio once you bought a kindle book which can make the audio quite affordable, and it syncs with a kindle copy so you can read the book in both formats depending on setting. Our library also has some audible books, but I think I have been through all the good ones of those.

Also I am way off my best total - in 2009 I read 251 books and in 2010 252!

>111 ronincats: Thanks Roni. Yes, and I haven't read any in Welsh yet! I need to rectify that.

Thanks for stopping by.

35 Fool's Quest - Robin Hobb



At 784 pages, this is my longest read so far this year, and one of my favourites too. I always have a sad feeling as I approach the end of one of Robin Hobb's books, knowing that it will soon be over and I must wait a long time before reading another. While I read them, it is like sharing a life with old friends - ones that I first started reading about over 20 years ago now!

If you have never read a Robin Hobb book, Don't start here. The first book of this series is The Assassin's Apprentice, and although this book is book 2 of a new trilogy, it draws on all the history from all the books that have gone before. As such, I won't say much about the story, except to say that once again it draws on one of the best developed fantasy worlds in the whole fantasy genre, and once again shows Hobb's amazing ability to create realistic, deep characters that you can fall in love with.

I actually bought this book almost exactly a year ago, and don't know why I left it so long to start it. Book 3 will be out in May so I decided I should read this one before that comes out.

Walking: 957 KM completed.

Yesterday I was at Salerno:



Salerno was the Roman colony of Salernum. In the middle ages it became important again as an independent Lombard principality and it was the site of allied landings in the Second World War (as it was part of the independent government of the south at the time).

Today I am on the world heritage Amalfi Coast.





All Images Creative Commons and taken from Wikipedia.

Wikipedia says this about the coast:

The Amalfi Coast (Italian: Costiera Amalfitana) is a stretch of coastline on the southern coast of the Salerno Gulf in the Province of Salerno in Southern Italy. The Amalfi Coast is a popular tourist destination for the region and Italy as a whole, attracting thousands of tourists annually. In 1997, the Amalfi Coast was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as a cultural landscape.

My exact location is here:

Current Location

As usual you can view my map here: Google Maps

Wow, that's gorgeous! I've been to Naples, but for a conference, so didn't get to tour the Amalfi coast with mrsdrneutron. We have a plan to go back... :)

>115 drneutron: Yep, the Amalfi coast deserves its reputation, and has various walking trails, but the road around it looks scary:

Not a good place to walk (but people do)

>112 sirfurboy: Can you read Welsh? My grandparents spoke Welsh as their first language and my father understood it pretty well and could speak a bit, but I don't think I could cope with any book in Welsh that was aimed at anyone above about four years of age!

>117 SandDune: Yes, my Welsh is pretty much fluent. Not that you would know it from my lack of Welsh reading of late :)

Thanks for stopping by.

36. Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town - Mary Beard



Mary Beard is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, a fellow of Newnham College, and Royal Academy of Arts Professor of ancient literature. She is also fast becoming the face of Roman history on the BBC. There should be no doubt that she knows her subject through and through, and here in this book she presents the life of Pompeii in a readable and thought provoking way.

She debunks many myths about Pompeii, and disagrees with other scholars at times, but when she does so she is careful to set out their view, as well as why she disagrees. She discusses recent theories about the dating of the eruption that destroyed Pompeii, and looks at all we know and all we think we know about Pompeii and what it tells us of Roman life in the first century.

An excellent introduction, guide book and text book on Pompeii.

And as I am mentioning Pompeii...

... I timed finishing that book quite carefully to coincide with my arrival on my virtual walk in Pompeii.

Here is a wikipedia image of the Temple of Venus at Pompeii with Vesuvius in the background.



The eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD is one of the most famous eruptions (probably THE most famous eruption) in history. Countless books, movies and episodes of TV shows have recounted the event, which has particularly captured the imagination of generations since the ruins of Pompeii first began to be excavated in the 18th century. Before that, it happens, Pompeii was largely forgotten by history, although the eruption was long remembered.

This is one place where I want to follow up my virtual tour with a real one very soon.

Wikipedia has information on Pompeii here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii

Nicely timed! I got a chance to visit back in 2012 - we had a great time exploring Pompeii. The exhibit of the people covered by the ash was really moving.

>119 sirfurboy: That one sounds interesting, I added it to my library list :-)

>120 sirfurboy: I've been there twice. (Living in Italy, even northern Italy, has its advantages!) When you go - bring your own guidebook.

37. The Thirty Nine Steps



A classic from the First World War that has been adapted into films and TV. First in a genre of 'hunted man' stories that were much loved by Hollywood.

Despite its status as a classic, I found it to be a bit too "boys own" for my liking. The writer knew he was writing a story that was "only just believable", and to be honest, I could not find the willing suspension of disbelief required. This was a world where one can tell a man is innocent because he is a decent chap and where the only people in the whole country seem to be the people you are running away from or the one or two decent chaps who help you out.

Our protagonist gets himself into a pickle when a neighbour turns up to say he is dead. It turns out that he means he has faked his death by acquiring a dead body, and shooting it, and then leaving it in his flat. The protagonist believes this story because the other man seems like a decent chap.

If i knew that a man had discharged a weapon next door, and that a man now lay dead in that apartment, then I think I might worry that the man telling the story was not being entirely straight with me.

There is some interesting politics in the book too, with the author, a conservative MP, writing a kindly but misguided liberal character who lacks true conviction but talks the must "unutterable rot" about free trade (conservatives of the time being dead set against free trade). Its all a bit transparent, even if the issues are not very current.

Finally the protagonist apparently speaks German, but all through the book we just read things like "I wrote something in German". It turns out that this is because the author is not very good with the language. When we finally get some spoken German it is this line:

"Schnell Franz," cried a voice, "der Boot, der Boot!"

So three words of German, and it's wrong. Boot (boat) is neuter. It should be "das Boot, das Boot!"

Pluses though: this was a fast paced piece that did usher in a hunted man genre and proved popular with young men in the first world war. If you like preposterous boys own stuff, this is a book for you.

Today I went walking in the mountains of Wales, climbing Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach.

On my virtual tour I reached Naples, having walked past Vesuvius and along the bay of Naples.

Naples,, of course, is the birthplace of the Neapolitan pie (Pizza). It is the capital of Campania, and the largest city in the South of Italy. The name comes from the Greek for "new city", which was true once, but now it is very old.



Image from Wikipedia.

Naples has a series of catacombs beneath it, as well as subterranean reservoirs dug by the Greeks and Romans. It also rests upon a huge geothermal zone, as the whole of the bay of naples is a volcanic hotspot. As recently as December there were suggestions that the whole area could be devastated by new eruptions there - although the media always prefer to pay the most prominence to the less likely but more catastrophic scenarios.

My favorite city in the world.

So Easter came and went and I have been busy with various things, thus not writing on here, sorry.

I did a fair bit of walking over Easter, including another mountain walk last week over Snowdon and two other peaks in Snowdonia. Consequently I am at the Parco Naturale dei Monti Aurunci on my virtual walk, just about 100 KM short of Rome.

Parco Naturale dei Monti Aurunci on my virtual walk, just about 100 KM short of Rome.

There are some nice volcanic features I passed on the walk that I will give a separate post to when I have hunted out good images.

Meanwhile I have only read two books, but I will give the reviews a message each.

38. Stardust - Neil Gaiman



Neil Gaiman is an accomplished author who has written some excellent books, and this one lives up to that reputation. It is a fairy tale for adults - although young adults would probably enjoy it too. A young lad sets off across a wall into the land of Fairy to recover a fallen star so as to impress the girl he wants to marry. There is a lot more to it than that. Plenty of mischief, some good friends, magic and mystery.

Gaiman's books are not quite the classic sort, for me, that I would happily read again and again, but I have never been disappointed by any of his tales.

39. The Last Kingdom - Bernard Cornwell



This series is getting a lot of attention now, because it has been made into a TV series, now on season 2. I haven't actually seen any of the series, and I am in two minds whether to pick it up now that I read the first book. Maybe I should keep reading before watching it.

I thinks I bought the book because it was cheap, and then it sat on my kindle unopened for a long time. I finally rectified that when I saw that season 2 of the TV series was here, and read this through quite quickly.

The story recounts the invasion of much of England in the 9th century by Danish Vikings. It is a period I only had hazy recollections of, from school days studying maps of Wessex and the Danelaw, and hearing about King Alfred, burnt cakes, and his truce with Hywel Dda and such like.

Bernard Cornwell rectifies that with what appears to me to be a well researched and interesting account focussing on Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a noble and rightful king of the lost Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. It is all gripping stiff from an accomplished writer of historical fiction, and I will be happy to read the next in the series when I have a chance.

The kindle version of this book remains cheap at one pound on Amazon UK, and if you like historical fiction, it is more than worth that.

>129 sirfurboy: I have seen and liked the TV-series and have the book on my library wish list. Usually I read the book before seeing the TV or movie adaption, but this time I found out about the book afterwards. Glad to read you liked the book.

>130 FAMeulstee: Thanks, yes I think I would usually read first and watch later but occasionally do it the other way round. It is always interesting to see how faithful the adaptions are. (Sometimes it is depressing too, as in the truly dreadful adaption of Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising").

40. Le trophée de Rochecombe (La Patrouille Des Castors - 6 ) - Mitacq



Sixth of this iconic Belgian (French Language) comic book series. The stories are also available in Dutch/Flemish although I have not been able to track down any of those versions.

In this story the Beaver patrol discover a bronze trophy, have a run win with some bullies, have the trophy stolen and then discover that it is a famous piece stolen from a museum along with some precious gems and worth millions. Well obviously the scouts have to find a way to track down the thieves and get the trophy back.

41. Lockwood & Co: The Dagger in the Desk - Jonathan Stroud



I found this sitting unread on my kindle and was a little confused when I realised I bought it in 2015 and it was published before the latest Lockwood story I read recently, but that confusion passed when I realised that this is not really part of the Lockwood sequence, but rather a short bonus story. I read it very quickly yesterday evening.

The book has all the trademark Jonathan Stroud humour, and describes a single haunting in the Lockwood world. It is not necessary at all to read this book as part of the series, but at 49 pence for the story, it is not a bad deal if you choose to. It may also be a good taster book if you want to see what Lockwood & Co. is all about, although I wonder whether there would be too much unexplained background detail for it to succeed in that.

Anyway, an enjoyable short work.

42. Insurgent - Veronica Roth



I read Divergent a couple of years ago, and quite enjoyed it. I read it because I had bought it and the sequels for my older daughter, whose friends had been raving about it. I don't read all her books, but she suggested I might like this one as it was science fiction themed. I did enjoy it but apparently not enough o rush out and read the sequel.

Well I have rectified that now, and caught up with book two of the adventures of Tris Pryor in post apocalyptic Chicago. Residents of Chicago (Ursula?) may find some meaningful geography in this book, but as I am unfamiliar with the city, it was just another setting for me. The writing is good, and the story made me think of the Hunger Games.

I should explain that comment though: this is no Hunger Games clone. The similarities of setting largely stop at the blank page that is post apocalyptic America. The Chicago of this book is Dystopian, but not so overtly nastily Dystopian as the Hunger Games. Instead the themes of the book centre around the rigidity of the factions and the breakdown of society that comes with the assault on the factions in the previous book.

But similarities with the Hunger Games also come in the strong female lead, as well as the love interest (Four) which clearly makes this a book that teenage girls will enjoy - but like the Hunger Games, and very much unlike Twilight, this side of things does not so dominate the book in a cringeworthy and stereotyped manner that it detracts from the larger story. Rather it deepens it.

From a sci-fi purist point of view there may appear to be some problems with this book, but still the author has given some good attention to the details of the setting so, despite the basic premise of the factions being so important and yet so hard to fully justify, it does not feel like the book requires an unwarranted suspension of disbelief. As a tale it works nicely.

It won't be one of my all time favourites, but this is definitely worth reading.

43. Allegiant - Veronica Roth



Following on from the last book, and finishing off this trilogy nicely, Allegiant wraps up the story fairly well, and filled in some of the blanks in the previous books, making this feel well crafted and with an strong message too. Tris Pryor finds people beyond Chicago, but all is not as it seems at first. Meanwhile Chicago is falling apart too, riven by civil war.

44. The Darke Toad - Angie Sage



A novella about Septimus Heap and set in the world of Magyk. This story goes back to just after Septimus became the apprentice to the extraordinary wizard and describes some early events in the rise of recently deceased Domdaniel. Full of the humour of Angie Sage's quirky world, this is a nice little adventure. It is not a necessary part of the sequence of Magyk books, but nice to read something from that world. I should have read it sooner (Amazon tells me I boght it in April 2013) but too many good books have been sitting around waiting for me to get to them.

45.Livres des Rois - Luis Segond version of the Bible



The book of Kings (1 Kings and 2 Kings) in French. Familiar stories from Solomon to Nebuchadnezzar but from a fresh perspective.

46. Attica - Garry Kilworthy



Chloe and Alex's father died of a heart attack when they were just 8 and respectively, 6. Their mother, Dipa has been trying to find a new husband since her children's father died. When she does, the kids have a surprise: they are going to have a new brother. Jordy, three months older than Chloe, is the exact opposite of Chloe and Alex, so they are not so happy when their family enlarges to five members. Now they have to move to a new home, an apartment in a shared house in Winchester. The owner of the other half of the house is an ld man who tells them he lost his watch and letters from his beloved in the attic.

The attic, it transpires, is a Narnia type gateway to another land, although unlike Narnia, the attic, to some extent, defines the bounds of this huge land. The children thus end up having many adventures with the strange denizens of the land of the Attic, called Attica by the children, naturally enough. The story is essentially the magical journey as they find their way home, brining back the lost objects with them.

This is fun stuff for mid grade children. The writing is solid, although not exceptional. Stories set in magical lands will always spark the imagination, and it creates a blank page on which so many possibilities can be explored, and the writer manages to explore many of these.

All the same, I felt like it dragged a little. Not badly, but enough that I would only cautiously recommend this book.

April Summary:

46 books completed this year, 12 of them in April.
14 out of 17 categories started in my category challenge ( https://www.librarything.com/topic/243521 )
8 books read in French (+1 in April)
2 book read in Dutch (none in April)
3 books read in German (none in April)
2 books read in Italian (none in April)

820 miles (1303 KM) walked.
2 categories complete yet

My TBR list is currently 70 books (+4 in April), which is actual books I have and targeted to read this year and does not count very many free samples I have on Kindle. As I have more free samples than I can count, the fact the real TBR has grown too is disheartening!

On my virtual tour, I completed 1303 KM by the end of April, and have nearly reached Rome.

>136 sirfurboy: I'll have to pick up that novella for my Kindle.

>140 ronincats: I hope you enjoy it Roni.

and now book 47, which I seem to have been reading slowly for a very long time:

47. In Dark Service (Far Called Trilogy #1)- Stephen Hunt



I bought this doorstep of a book in August 2015. I forget why I chose it, perhaps as holiday reading, but like many books, on my TBR, that never happened. It was on my list of 75+ books for this year, so I have finally waded through it. My thoughts? In short, probably not worth the effort unless you are a committed Steampunk fan.

Perhaps I bought it as an attempt to get the Steampunk genre more, but if so, this one failed.

But first, let's look at the positives: the setting of this book is vast and filled with many imaginative ideas. Most of those ideas are actually probably not original to this work, but the world building mixes and matches borrowed ideas from such a vast range of literature that the world of Pellas feels rich and conveys the impression of vastness that allows one area to be at the tech level of the wild west and another nation, thousands upon thousands of miles away can have anti gravity technology and other vast and almost magical levels of tech development. There are humans but also intelligent non humans on this world, and all kinds of interesting things.

the size of the world, however, is challenging to straight sci-fi fans, who will note that the immensity of the world makes it of stellar proportions, dwarfing even gas giants like the planet Jupiter. Indeed this world may not even have an end, so don't try to think of this as sci-fi at all. Instead, think of Narnia - a world so different from our own that our notions of the physics of worlds don't apply. (Nevertheless the pedant in me wonders why the book references compass points like North and South if the world is really endless and thus without poles).

In this vast landscape, a group of young people (adults, but young adults in their early 20s) are kidnapped to serve as slaves in floating mines. The father of one of them, Jacob Carnehan, who has a mysterious past, but who has lived peacably as a pastor for many years, sets out to rescue them, revealing that he is something of an action hero en route.

Despite the huge setting and the myriad of possibilities this setting offers, there is a certain predictability to the whole thing. Also it is really very very slow, and quite overwritten. Dialogue is often stilted and then includes colloquialisms that pull you out of the setting: "shut your cakehole!" Paragraphs can be huge, at least once lasting well over a whole page. We have lots of internal monologue and soul searching and other stuff that really slows things down so that after a third of the book, really you are barely into the story. It is only the last third of the book where pace picks up a bit, and leads to an action packed finale, which may or may not be worth the wait, depending on your tolerance for such things.

There are also coincidences in the book that feel contrived, and plot elements that could have been thought through some more. Some things are just too convenient, and the ideas can be strongly reminiscent of other works.

Editing was generally good, but a few howlers got through, and one wonders if that was because, given the length of this work, maybe even the editors might have skimmed it a little!

This is one for my "wish I hadn't bothered" pile, but your mileage may vary. Steampunk fans may forgive the pacing and dialogue issues for the benefit of a huge and unusual setting. Non steampunk readers will probably be better served with a different introduction to the genre.

>141 sirfurboy: Stephen Hunt did a previous steampunk series that started with The Court of the Air - which was a mess. Too many characters, too much stuff going on, too much of everything. Sounds like this one suffers from the same.

>142 drneutron: Yes, I did not mention the rather overblown list of characters and viewpoints, but that would be a criticism of this work too I think.

It's official. Find the May Martians and Magic Theme Thread here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/256332

Please come aboard. Just share all your reading in the areas of science fiction, fantasy, fairy tales, myth or magical realism with us here on this thread during May. Share your favorite recommendations, talk about the new books you are reading, discuss the classics.

48. Sgwid Beynon a'r Adenydd Angel - Siân Lewis



This is a novel for mid grade children written in Welsh. S. Gwydion Beynon (Sgwid to his friends) is a 14 year old boy who just wants to be the youngest ever world snooker champion. His father is assistant manager for Stardust Tiles, a famous company that must showcase its latest design, the Angel Wing (Adenydd Angel) tile in London, and the manager's sudden death means that this duty now falls to Sgwid's father, Idris. This leaves Sgwid to stay over with his grandmother while his parents go to London.

Sgwid practices snooker in a garden shed (must be a big shed!) but while he is practicing he witnesses something strange and investigating the garden pind next door, discovers part of the unreleased Angel Wings tile in the water. There is also a strange man (slick hair and skin like leather...so no stereotypes there then) hanging around and also people renting the house next door have gone missing. Before we know what is what, Sgwid is on his way to London and being followed by the strange man, trying to piece together a series of clues that lead to quite an astounding conclusion (astounding because it seems things are a bit more far reaching than you would expect from the above. This is not just someone stealing the tile designs).

All in all this is a fast paced and enjoyable book for the target readership. I don't expect it will get an English translation though.

I have completed 1319 KM walking this year thus far, and on my virtual walk that puts me here:



Parco dei Castelli Romani is a beautiful area formed from the extinct Lazio volcano (or Latium to the Romans). The volcano, called Mons Albanus by the Romans is now known as Colli Albani. Although extinct, the crater is very obviously volcanic, and it was these volcanic soils that perhaps attracted the first settlers to this area and ultimately to Rome.

49. Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain



I read this one as a child, straight after reading Tom Sawyer. I think I was about 12 or maybe 13 years old at the time. On re-reading it, I found I did not recall this story as well as I thought I did. I remembered some parts well enough (such as when Huck Finn pretends to be a girl and is found out) but had forgotten the blood feud stuff and thought the river journey on the raft was longer than it actually is. I also do not recall if I really understood all the wit and various historical and literary references that Twain makes, nor all the dry observations. I may have done, but it may be that later experience has made this a very different book for me.

In any case it remains a great classic work of American literature, documenting a life in the American South, and its attitudes that are no doubt heavily emphasised for the book, but are nevertheless apparently based on the author's experience of them. There are interesting ironies too, such as the blood feud that ends in multiple murders among two families that attend the same church preaching brotherly love. There are many more of these, and Twain was an astute social commentator with a wonderful dry sense of humour.

The arrival of Tom Sawyer into the story is something of a Dickensian coincidence, as is the way that Pap Finn's body was found (but not recognised). Pap Finn's death is also unresolved, and that was no doubt quite deliberate on the part of the author. Did he fall out with other deadbeats? That is most likely and perhaps adds meaning to the discussion of (different) thieves murdering another later on. Or was he murdered by someone who thought he himself had murdered his own son? And if the latter, did Tom Sawyer have something to do with that too? Did Mark Twain intend that ambiguity in the story? Or is the thought of Tom Sawyer being in any way connected witha revenge murder a step too far?

When I was at school we had to study a book for our English Literature exams. The year above mine got to study this book, whilst my year was saddled with "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" which was a book I would never have picked up myself otherwise. I remember being annoyed that we were not studying the book I had read for pleasure already, although these days I can perhaps appreciate the educational benefit of being made to study the one I would not otherwise have chosen. All the same, I wonder what other insights I might have found if stufying Huck Finn more deeply.

50. A Slave to Magic - Lana Axe



This is a reasonably short novel I picked up at some time or other and that has sat around on my kindle ever since. Amazon claims it is 356 pages long but I doubt it is really much over 100 at an average print density.

The story concerns a human lad called Kwil, captured with his parents when he was very young and when they rather foolishly took their young son on a journey to a mythical land from which no one had ever returned. The reason for that, it seems, is because the mythical land is inhabited by nekos. Well, the book does not call them nekos, but they are humanoid felines called gatans, so I was thinking neko all the way through. The gatans enslave any human that enters their lands and forbid them from using magic. They also separate Kwil from his parents at an early age.

Kwil is small, ugly, not much use at anything except he has a strong magical talent that he insists on cultivating in secret, even though it would mean death were he discovered.

Enter into the story a liberal minded gatan willing to help Kwil, and then an accidental (and rather foolish) betrayal and soon they are on the run seeking freedom and the chance for Kwil to practice magic openly.

So, what to make of this?

The book is self published (although the author at least created her own publishing company to do so). However it does not suffer from many of the usual faults of self published works. The editing is pretty good, the cover art seems professional, typesetting is fine and the writing is competent. Nevertheless I doubt a large publisher would release this story in this form. I think they would tackle the following issues:

1. The opening of the book is exposition heavy. There is plenty of telling of Kwil's back story, especially in the opening pages and little to grip the reader there.

2. Characterisation is quite weak, and would be greatly helped by spending more time on development

3. The overall story is really pretty simple. There are no major twists and no surprises.

4. Pacing needs more thought. Mostly the story is rushed, but occasionally it meanders.

5. The book's anti slavery polemic may be quite right, but having just read Huckleberry Finn, the two books are worlds apart from each other in allowing the reader to think themselves into the society they describe. While Huck Finn is wracked with guilt for helping Jim escape slavery, and expects to go to hell for it (because it is theft, you see?) the people in this book that want to end slavery are entirely devoid of any such internal conflicts. This is a much simpler work in that respect.

This is definitely not the worst book I have read this year, but I can't recommend it. The book is a stand alone, but set in a world with other stories by the same author. I won't be reading them.

>146 sirfurboy: Yet an other beautiful place in Italy!
Don't you wish you could walk this trail for real?

>149 FAMeulstee: Oh yes, definitely. Or perhaps I would like to cycle it. At the very least I would like to pick off some highlights on a trip sometime.

51. Sgwid Beynon a'r Dyn Marw - Siân Lewis

Title translates as Sgwid (or Squid) Beynon and the Dead Man.



The second Sgwid Beynon story following the aspiring snooker player, S. Gwydion Benyon (Sgwid to his friends) who is now under the tutelage of a trainer, Gary Humphreys, in Cardiff. He is still only interested in the snooker and the rugby, but all that changes when someone is spotted. I should avoid spoilers from the first story, but the person spotted is a man who should be dead. A man who Sgwid has had run ins with before. What is he doing here, in Cardiff Bay?

Not a bad story, if not a stand out one.